


The Final Days

by PadaWinBaby



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 10:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18233711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadaWinBaby/pseuds/PadaWinBaby
Summary: They’d done it.The world was saved.Nobody needed them anymore.So they faded into the background of a history that would no longer include them.





	The Final Days

**Author's Note:**

> I whipped this thing up in little over an hour, as a sort of wishful-thinking what-if exercise, in light of the news that Supernatural will be ending after Season 15. This is...kind of what I'd like to see in the finale, in a perfect world, where the writers do what the fans want. I don't anticipate literally any of it happening, but there's some hope. That being said, I hope you'll forgive my bias as a Dean girl; I'm afraid Sam doesn't get nearly as much screen time here as he deserves. As much as I love The Boy With The Demon Blood, I feel like Dean would take suddenly not being a Hunter for keeps a lot worse now than he did back when he had a go of it with Lisa. That being said, I've always wanted the Winchesters to have some sort of happy ending. I hope this suffices.

They’d done it.

The world was saved.

Nobody needed them anymore.

So they faded into the background of a history that would no longer include them.

~

Sam Winchester showed up at the admissions office of Stanford University 15 years after he’d left his last class with the intention of coming back the next week for midterms. He’d cut off all that hair he’d grown out, finally taking a moment to take care of himself instead of his brother. His fine brown hair was cropped close to his skull, the way his father had always tried to insist. He’d let his beard come in properly, too. He looked a lot younger than he felt, though. The hazel eyes that hid behind the tiny rimless glasses he’d finally admitted to needing were dull with a heaviness that no other human could understand. And yet, here he was, coming back to the notion that he could help people, and not just by salting their house or exorcising their neighbor. The law was so much less tangible than a knife, but it was just as much a weapon, and he was once again eager to wield it.

The admissions counsellor he met with was younger than him, closer to the 22-year-old child he’d been when he’d first enrolled. Sam was patient with him, and the young man seemed to sense that he was dealing with someone who was more than they appeared.

“Did you serve overseas?” the kid asked, trying to pin Sam down. Sam couldn’t help how derisive his laugh sounded. “No,” he assured. “I’ve never been to war.” But that was a lie. He’d fought too many wars to count. He’d seen more action than any seasoned veteran could boast. He’d fought on both sides of more than a few. 

“I see you’ve applied for a MacArthur Grant,” the kid commented, trying to get back on task. “What’re you planning to do with it?”

Sam let out a long breath before he answered. “I’m finishing a project started by an old friend of mine,” he said, choosing his words carefully.

~

Jimmy Novak had been dead for something like 11 years. The gravestone said as much. The silence in Castiel’s head said the same. But the fact remained that the man had had a life to return to, one he’d hoped he would only be away from for a couple of days at most. His wife had died of a broken heart shortly after he’d gone missing, and Claire….well. Claire was a subject best not mentioned.

Castiel stood outside of Jimmy’s house, watching its new occupants go about their day. There were two mothers, from what he could tell, and four children: a boy, a girl, a younger girl, and an infant whose gender was not apparent. They seemed happy. He was glad. This house deserved happiness.

He took off his trenchcoat and folded it over his arm. He loosened his tie and hung it on the mailbox, and then he took a deep breath. “Goodbye, Jimmy,” he said in his husky voice. “Sleep well.” He turned on his heel and got back into the sleek black car he’d arrived in.

Several days later saw Castiel smiling, the expression wide and toothy and blindingly white behind the scruff he’d grown. His hair was tousled more than usual, and he was comfortably clad in a soft t-shirt, worn jeans, and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his feet plugged into new leather boots. He was painting a wall, and he laughed, ducking away, when someone splattered him with some.

Every day he spent away from the broken promise of Heaven was happy, filled with laughter, love, and light that he’d never been party to before. The greatest gift his Father had given him, after all, was the human life he was living now, with a partner he wanted to grow old and experience human death with. He was happy, and that was all that mattered after what he’d gone through.

~

Dean Winchester had to seek counselling after things ended. But he had his six-month AA chip on his keys now, and he was beginning to look forward to his therapy sessions. After a life lived on the road and under the radar, it was strange to settle down and live as Dean Winchester again. The one thing he’d asked for when it was time to settle the score was a reset. He wanted a chance to live as himself, authentically, and Chuck had obliged. Dean was one of his favorite creations, after all. It was the least he could do.

So Dean Winchester had a real address, and he collected a legitimate disability check every month, but he still drove his father’s Impala down to the local diner every morning for a slice of pie, a cup of coffee, and the newspaper. He still called up his old Hunter buddies from time to time, to check in and see how civilian life was treating them. Most people assumed he was a veteran, and he didn’t have the heart to disabuse them of the notion.

When he got his one-year chip, Dean celebrated by going back to school. It was community college, but it was better than ignorance. He learned to love to read, and found an affinity for numbers he didn’t realize he’d had. Two years on, he had an Associate’s degree, and a hunger for more. He enrolled in an online university, and flew through coursework his young self would’ve been horrified by.

Dean attended Sam’s graduation ceremony a month after Sam had attended his. Dean still drew disability, but he did so now with the knowledge that he was kind of an engineering genius. He rebuilt classic cars in his spare time, paying homage to Bobby by reviving his old junkyard. He could admit that every time he came downstairs to the smell of coffee brewing, expecting the old man to hand him a mug, only to find the kitchen empty and the coffee unmade kind of stung, but he’d learned over the years that some things should stay dead. Bobby deserved his rest.

It helped that he had Castiel around to talk to. And a dog, a smallish brindle pit he called Charlie. Castiel had sort of stuck him out, climbing into the front seat of his Impala the day he’d dropped Sam off back at Stanford, and quietly asking Dean to take him to Jimmy’s old place. It was nice having someone besides his therapist to talk to, someone who knew exactly what he’d been through, because he’d lived it too.

What began as a more relaxed version of the same friendship they’d cultivated for years evolved as the two men settled into life together. Dean made the first move one cold winter night during a blizzard. Castiel, who’d never had to deal with a sensitivity to temperature fluctuations before, didn’t know how to deal with the cold. Dean offered him half of the blanket he was huddled under by the fire, and pulled the former angel into his side with a strong arm. It was tense for a while, but then Castiel fell asleep against him, and Dean decided that he liked this. Dean made more of an effort for physical closeness after that, purposely invading Castiel’s personal space where once he would have balked at being so near another man.

Casual touches began to linger more as time passed, turned affectionate, and eventually evolved into a sort of demi-platonic romance. It took Dean entirely longer than he would’ve admitted to accept the idea that he might be bisexual, finally seeing his pseudo-homophobic posturing for what it was. His personal acceptance led him to a whole new source of angst that nearly drove Castiel away: how to broach the subject to the former angel. He was so convinced that Castiel would leave if he found out that Dean might be interested in him romantically that he started closing himself off.

Naturally, Castiel, who had gotten used to being so close and platonically intimate with Dean, didn’t take the sudden cold shoulder well, believing he’d done something to harm Dean’s recovery. The angel was all set to leave when Dean sort of just….shouted his feelings at Cas and hoped for the best.

That night, Dean learned that you could get drunk on kisses just as easily as you could on alcohol, and that all those chick flicks he’d rejected in his younger days might have been right about the moment when you find The One. Dean Winchester had had a lot of sex in his life, but never once had he made love to someone as thoroughly as he did Castiel.

Ten years later, Dean and Castiel repainted the master bedroom at Bobby’s house in preparation for the child they were adopting. His name was Gabriel. He had golden eyes and a shock of blonde hair at only six months old. Dean wasn’t blind to the resemblance, but he hoped that the kid wouldn’t be too rough on them. The idea of raising a child made Castiel so happy that he couldn’t say no.

That summer, they met Sam’s new wife, and Dean got to hold his niece for the first time. “She looks just like Mom,” Dean whispered thickly. Sam smiled. “Here’s hoping that ends up a blessing.”

~

Samuel John Winchester passed away in his sleep, just shy of his seventieth birthday. Death greeted him as an equal. They shared a plate of pickle chips before he ushered Sam on. Heaven had been rebuilt in the years since he’d last seen it, and all the people he loved came and went as they pleased from a central structure. Stepping into the Roadhouse truly felt like coming home, even before his mother beckoned him over to sit between her and John, or Ellen poured him a drink.

~

Dean and Castiel went out together, at nearly 90, while staring out at the ocean. Death greeted them as equals, and once again offered Dean his job, this time with an edge of humor. Dean turned him down flat, but with a smile. They both knew he wasn’t ruthless enough. It was Castiel who reminded Death that they needed to be going. When the door opened to the Roadhouse, a cheer went up among its residents, and Sam hugged his brother harder than he had in years.

“We did it,” he whispered. “We earned this.”

Dean hugged him back, his hand shaking slightly where it pressed into his brother’s back.

“Yes we fucking did.”

~

Death is never the end, of course. Where would be the fun in that?

Somewhere in South Dakota, in the tumble-down house at the back of an old junkyard outside of Sioux Falls, a phone rings. There are several phones lined up on the wall on either side of it, each one marked with the abbreviation for a government agency scrawled in black marker on aged and flaky masking tape. The one that rings is labeled with block letters that once spelled out HELL. When nobody answers, a machine clicks on the desk below, and, after a beep, a message is recorded: “Hey Gabe, toasty down here. It’s Meg. You told me to let you know what I found out about the Cage? Your dad was right. Big things are moving down here. Daddy’s doing a great job back in charge and all, but somebody’s getting cranky. The locks are starting to pop, and I don’t wanna be around when what’s in there gets free. Rumor has it he’s your uncle. Even Daddy’s scared of him. We might need your help. It’s time to get the gang back together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to tell me what you thought, and DEFINITELY share your specific hopes for the series finale in the comments below.


End file.
